Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Asteroid-impacting DART mission deploys a tiny observer satellite

By

This month, NASA will deliberately crash one of its spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of planetary defense capabilities. The idea of the DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is to test out what options we might have if we ever spotted a dangerous asteroid headed toward Earth, by seeing whether crashing into an asteroid would be effective at diverting its course.

For the test, the DART spacecraft has been traveling toward a pair of asteroids since its launch in November last year. During that time the craft sent back its first images and the target asteroid was imaged as well. Now, the DART craft has deployed a small satellite that will take photographs as the crash occurs. The satellite, called LICIACube or Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, was popped free from a spring-loaded box on DART on September 11.

Illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system.
Illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

The deployment of LICIACube is a big moment for a smaller space agency too. The Italian Space Agency provided the satellite in a partnership with NASA.

Recommended Videos

“We are so excited for this — the first time an Italian team is operating its national spacecraft in deep space!” said Simone Pirrotta, LICIACube project manager for the Italian Space Agency, in a statement. “The whole team is fully involved in the activities, monitoring the satellite status and preparing the approaching phase to the asteroid’s flyby. We expect to receive the first full-frame images and to process them a couple of days after DART’s impact. We’ll then use them to confirm impact and to add relevant information about the generated plume — the real precious value of our photos.”

When DART impacts the asteroid, the idea is that LICIACube will be able to capture images of the immediate aftermath using two cameras it has on board: LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid).

“We are excited to have LICIACube on its way — our intrepid little reporter that we hope will make a valuable contribution to DART,” said Andrew Cheng, a lead investigator of DART. “What it will witness and document will provide us unique and important information that we otherwise wouldn’t get to see.”

To gather more information about the effectiveness of the DART test, the European Space Agency mission HERA will follow with a launch in November 2024 to also visit the asteroid system and see in detail the effects of the impact.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Asteroid impacted by spacecraft is reshaped like an M&M ‘with a bite taken out’
An illustration shows a spacecraft from NASA's DART mission approaching the asteroid it was intended to redirect.

In 2022, the world watched with fascination as NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of what kind of defense options might be available to humanity if an incoming asteroid ever threatened Earth. Observers could tell very quickly that the test, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART, was successful in changing the asteroid's orbit. But now astronomers have learned more, finding that the impact may have reshaped the asteroid significantly.

The asteroid impacted, called Dimorphos, is very small at around 500 feet across, and the DART spacecraft crashed into it at a tremendous speed of nearly 4 miles per second. Researchers have now used computer modeling to see the effects of this impact, given the limited amount of information we have on the composition and uneven surface of Dimorphos.

Read more
NASA has collected a whopping 121 grams of sample from asteroid Bennu
A view of eight sample trays containing the final material from asteroid Bennu. The dust and rocks were poured into the trays from the top plate of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head. 51.2 grams were collected from this pour, bringing the final mass of asteroid sample to 121.6 grams.

When the OSIRIS-REx dropped a capsule in the Utah desert last year, it made headlines around the globe for returning NASA's first sample of an asteroid to Earth. Scientists were eager to get their hands on the sample of asteroid Bennu to learn about the early formation of the solar system, but actually getting at the sample proved to be rather trickier than imagined.

Scientists were able to extract 70 grams of material from the sample canister relatively easily, making it by far the largest asteroid sample ever brought to Earth, but two troublesome fasteners made it difficult to extract the rest of the sample. The team knew it had plenty more sample inside, but it had to be patient as special new tools were constructed that could undo the fasteners without losing a single gram of the precious sample.

Read more
NASA launches PACE satellite to observe Earth’s oceans and atmosphere
NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:33 a.m. EST, Feb. 8, 2024, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. From its orbit hundreds of miles above Earth, PACE will study microscopic life in the oceans and microscopic particles in the atmosphere to investigate key mysteries of our planet’s interconnected systems.

NASA has launched its latest Earth-monitoring mission, a satellite that studies the atmosphere and the oceans and their relationship to climate change. The Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission launched at 1:33 a.m. ET on Thursday, February 8, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:33 a.m. ET, February 8, 2024, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA

Read more